Reader donations for print

Music magazine Paste asked readers to help it out of its money troubles. The print magazine needed $300,000. After ten days it collected $175,000 in reader donations.

Some public broadcasting radio and TV stations raise money through donations — mainly in the US.

Can the same donation model work for print?

It's already working

The answer is, in a way it already does. Print magazines already earn revenue from copy and subscription sales. If there’s less advertising, the publication's cover price can be set higher to compensate. This is the model that has worked for decades.

Many publications already carry no advertising and just make money from copy or subscription payments. This was very much the case for the UK's 'Fleet Street' newspapers in the past where copy sales revenue would outstrip advertising revenue by a huge margin.

New Zealand’s Consumer Institute magazine Consumer doesn’t carry advertising. The same applies to Choice in Australia and similar titles elsewhere in the world.

This means the magazine’s readers know its articles are written without any pressure from advertisers. In a very real sense, these publications depend on reader donations, but the transaction is framed as a subscription. It amounts to the same thing in practice.

It can a good business model for publishers. Subscription revenue is more reliable than advertising and you get it before paying for publishing costs. I think we’ll see more subscription-driven print titles in the future.